As pointed out in Frontpage mag:
As the numbers of heat deaths climb, a final figure of close to 20,000 is being seen as not unrealistic - in other words, a humanitarian disaster.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Guantanamo Bay, which the French are in the habit of condemning with dainty disgust as barbaric, sweltering, fetid and inhuman, remains remarkably stable: None.
From the folks over at WackingDay
Pity his successors made it turn to shit.FORTY years ago today, Martin Luther King delivered possibly the most powerful speech in American politics since Abraham Lincoln defined what the United States stood for in his Gettysburg and Second Inaugural addresses of 1863 and 1864.
The century separating the speeches by the two men, both of whom were to be murdered by racists, was a shameful time for all Americans who believed in the promise of the Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal".
It was why King described his dream of hope "that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the colour of their skin but the content of their character".
Yet now, the "civil rights" movement is lead by worthless racist gangsters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who's entire agenda is judging people by the color of their skin. The sad part is, so many people don't see the hypocrisy.
There is a big fuss over Arnold Schwarzenegger's old OUI magazine interview. Geez people! All it proves is that he was well suited to marry into the Kennedy Family.
The partisan rhetoric on Fox News gets pretty thick some times.
This time is was sprayed with a fire hose by former BJ Clinton UN Ambassador Holebrook.
After showing a better understanding of the DNC party line than history while discussing Iraq (where there are serious problems), he then came out and said that the Clinton era North Korea treaty wasn't "as bad" as it was made out to be, when in fact it was worse.
It was so bad, that even Ann Coulter says that not even the BJ Clinton foreign policy team couldn't come up with a treaty that bad. Former President Jimmy "Rabbit Bait" Carter came up with that and then the Clinton team wasn't gusty enough to say no to him.
Whacking Day brings us The List of Truth
1: Western capitalist democracy is superior to all other forms of society and culture.
2: Ronald Reagan won the cold war and defeated communism.
3: The Soviet Union was an evil empire that murdered millions.
4: Socialism kills, free markets feed.
5: Wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt is the moral equivalent of wearing a swastika.
6: Public transport sucks.
7: The founding of the United States is the greatest thing to happen to the human race since the Magna Carta was signed.
8: Eddie Lawson is the greatest motorcycle racer of all time.
9: The free market is the most fair and efficient method of allocating resources.
10: Public broadcasters should be shut down or fully privatised.
"Think of Iraq as "East Korea," because it was a shoot the cuffs war for the edification of?Kim Jong Il (search)?to let him know we’ve now circled the SUVs. Iraq was about breaking adhesions, getting lean, staying frosty -- in short, getting ready for the big Doug MacArthur Memorial Cage Match to come." -- Dennis Miller
I Want To Shoot This [EXPLETIVE]!!!
Suspected 'Blaster' Is Busted
Aug 29, 2003 4:01 pm US/Central
Minneapolis (AP) An 18-year-old from Hopkins accused of spreading a damaging Internet infection weeks ago was arrested Friday and later released under restrictions set by a federal judge.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Richard Nelson told Jeffrey Lee Parson not to access the Internet or any other network connection and placed him on electronic monitoring.
Parson, known online as "teekid," told the judge he understood the charges against him. He didn't enter a plea during his initial court appearance. His next hearing is scheduled for Sept. 17 in Seattle, where the case was being investigated.
During the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Luehr told the judge that Parson's Internet worm, along with other Blaster variants, caused $5 million to $10 million worth of damage to Microsoft alone. He said at least 7,000 computers were affected by Parson's worm.
Parson, a 6-foot-4, 320-pound high school senior from Hopkins, spoke only in response to questions from the judge.
He calls 'em like he sees 'em (from Yahoo News)
Jack Black, the star of the movie Shallow Hal and member the rock band Tenacious D, was in rare form backstage. Black said his favorite moment of the evening was the opening number when Madonna planted a kiss on Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. "Britney, Madonna--that was the hot one," Black said. "And if you notice, when she turned to kiss the other chick, not as much tongue--afraid of the skanky sores on the side of her mouth. I calls 'em like I sees 'em and she was holding back on the kiss on the other chick."
Think Of It As Socialist Bureaucracy In Action
And if you don't want to register at the Star-Tribune site (and I wouldn't blame you) I have the entire text of the story at my own blog.
-- Les
In 2000, China increased its defense spending to 13 percent of its gross domestic product, followed by another augmentation to 17 percent in 2001. One analyst observed that recent purchases by Chinese generals tend to “emphasize power-projection forces” to apply military power “at a distance.” Though the actual reasons are decreed as protective measures by the Chinese government, some correlation can be drawn to recent maneuvers, such as its claim of 80 percent of the South China Sea, which is against international law, and by its direct colonialism over the Paracel and Spratly Islands, also in possession of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. A former Philippines defense minister called this a “creeping invasion” when asked to comment on its possible ramifications. China has also laid claim to the Philippines’ Mischief Reef and has established military installations on four other disputed reefs; moreover, has been a notable increase in Chinese naval traffic around the Philippines’ territories that makes many countries “uneasy that China may want to resume the imperial status it had in earlier centuries,” according former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
Furthermore, the Japanese government has reported that Chinese military vessels sail into Japanese waters approximately 20 times per year. This has prompted the Japanese Defense Ministry to begin a massive project for mapping its coastal seafloor to observe China’s growing fleet of submarines. This is not to mention that Japan moves 70 percent of its crude oil and fishing through the South China Sea, of which China has called for the “immediate eviction of foreign military vessels or vessels owned by foreign governments and used for noncommercial purposes that violate the laws and regulations” of China.
The Cost of Liberal Enviro-Terrorism
According to James Jarboe, the FBI’s domestic terrorism section chief, criminal acts of domestic terrorism linked to liberal groups like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front number more than 600 since 1996 and have resulted in more than $43 million in damage.
From the Washington Times, Al Franken lied (no surprise there)
Left-wing comedian Al Franken readily admits he lied in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft and others. And that's not all. Mr. Franken also admits to deception by misappropriating the letterhead from Harvard's Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy
The irony: Mr. Franken's new book is called "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them."
Matt Lauer, on NBC's "Today" show Monday, did not let Mr. Franken get away without explaining himself. The conversation was recorded by the Media Research Center (www.mediaresearch.org).
Mr. Lauer: "They're gonna kill me downstairs, but I gotta ask you, I don't want you to go without asking about an apology you were forced to issue ... I guess it was last week. You sent a letter to John Ashcroft, the attorney general of the United States."
Mr. Franken: "I sent it like to 27 people."
Mr. Lauer: "And you basically said, 'Look I'm doing a book on, on abstinence and, and I've gotten positive responses from other key administration officials.' "
Mr. Franken: "Yeah, can I, can I read it real quick?"
Mr. Lauer: "No, no, I don't have time for that. But you sent it on Harvard letterhead, the Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy. They didn't know anything about this."
Mr. Franken: "Yeah. Right, right."
Mr. Lauer: "You had not, in fact, received positive responses from these. ..."
Mr. Franken: "Right."
Mr. Lauer: "So, in, in effect, you misled or lied."
Mr. Franken: "Exactly."
Public Services and soap dodgers
A little tale of the wonderful French health service
My father lives in France and is ill. Thus has to go hospital for a week or so. A month back he did this before. He had the op and was left attached to a bank of monitors alonmgside 51 other patients. The nurses spend there time in a control room watching the screens for flatlines. After couple of days recuperation he asked if he could use the shower, no problem came the response from the cardiologist.. Consternation in the control room. There are 2 baths and one shower for 51 people. However no patient had ever asked to wash before, so the three rooms were store cupboards. After half an hours’ work the shower was freed for use. Great thought father, human again.
When he asked the next day his request was greeted with a polite but stone faced refusal, the storeroom was back in operation.
So this morning I went to the shop in a little town called Frevent to get him supplies for the next weeks sojourn under the knife. And was startled to find Veet. Veet is a deodorant that proudly states –VEET DEODORANT - LASTS THREE DAYS.
Never have my prejudices about the French received such a fillip.
Soldier played her cards right
Nabs Iraqi official
By DARLA McFARLAND
The Examiner
One of Iraq's most wanted generals was run down over the weekend by a young soldier who just a few years ago was running down opponents on the Fort Osage High School track team.
U.S. Army Specialist Heather Baldus, 21, of Independence, was standing guard duty west of Bagdad along the road to Syria. In a call to her mother Saturday, Baldus related the story of how she chased down General Husam (Hossam) Mohammed Amin.
"She was standing post with this other soldier when she saw some movement in a bush by the road," explained Baldus' mother, Kim James, of Sibley. "She told the guy to cover her while she checked it out."
As Baldus approached, she came under fire from unseen gunmen in surrounding buildings. A man bolted from the bush ahead and she pursued, knocking him to the ground with a blow to the head from the butt of her weapon.
"He looked up at her and all he could say was 'You're a woman.' Heather told him 'Yeah, but that doesn't mean I won't put a bullet through your head,' " James said. "Heather has always been outspoken."
IMNSHO, the democrats are in the same boat the Republicans were in in 1996.
They are not for a damn thing, they are only against the person in the White House.
That works well with the hardcore, extremist wing of the party, but it's not going to fly this time either with the centrist majority of voters.
My prediction is that as long as the democrats keep pushing Socialist Howard Dean, this country is looking a GW Bush Presidency to last to 2008.
Take Home Your Dead!
From the Dissident Frogman:
Pick Up Your Dead • Ramassez Vos Morts
No seriously, please do....
There's a problem in Bordeaux. Unlike the Parisian mess I addressed in the previous post, they successfully matched the dead with their corresponding living relatives.
But Poppa's offspring is refusing to take the old lion's corpse back:
50 corpses, (...) are currently abandoned at the morgue of Bordeaux's CHU (Hospital), their family refusing to settle the funeral charges.
"We're looking for a legal way to compel the families to come and fetch their relatives, but it's not easy (...)
Well, they wouldn't care for him when he was alive, so why on earth would they pay 500 Euros for a dead Pop?
We are repeatedly lectured and brainwashed with the "utter selfishness" of the American society, to the point that this barefaced fiction became an almost undiscussed dogma.
In the meantime, the French society is openly going backward. With this complete indifference for its own kin, its members are acting like pre-mammal organisms.
Such as the shark, the villepin or the crocodile.
We should definitely keep those dead in the fridge.
They will probably end up eating them.
"Have you noticed how we don't hear much about Bush-haters? It's odd since not long ago "Clinton-hatred" was a national epidemic.... [T]he most outrageous accusations against Bush are commonplace on the left and in liberal circles today, but we don't get articles in the mainstream press ridiculing 'Bushophobia.'" - Jonah Goldberg
From Viking Pundit
Free Speech for me, but not for thee
This past weekend, Robert Novak offered up this “Outrage of the Week” on the Capital Gang:NOVAK: In South Dakota, the Rushmore Policy Council is running newspaper ads against Senator Tom Daschle calling on the Senate Democratic leader to permit votes on President Bush's judicial nominations and contending that Tom Daschle won't let America drill for oil at home.
That's permissible criticism under the First Amendment, isn't it? Not in the opinion of Senator Max Baucus, the Finance Committee's top Democrat. He has written the IRS commissioner attacking the Rushmore Policy Council's tax-exempt status. Will the senator demand the same of labor unions? Don't be silly.
But, according to this AP story, Max Baucus has a risible explanation: the Rushmore Policy Council is engaging in (*gasp!*) “overtly political activity.”
Puh-leeze. Where were Baucus and all the other Democrats (with the laudable exception of Bob Kerrey) when the tax-exempt NAACP was running ads during the 2000 Presidential campaign equating Bush with hate crimes in Texas? That kind of invidious speech is fine for the Democrats; it’s only the speech directed against them that should be banned.
The High Cost of Hillary
From today's New York Post Page Six:August 25, 2003 -- HILLARY Clinton's memoir "Living History" earned the junior Senator an $8 million advance, but some say it cost 75 employees at Simon & Schuster their jobs. Just weeks after S&S published Clinton's autobio, the publisher laid off 75 employees. A company rep says "there's no connection" between Clinton's fat payday and the mass layoffs, but the New York Press begs to differ. The paper points out that even if Clinton manages to sell 1.5 million copies - 1.2 million have been sold since June 9 and sales are slipping rapidly - the publisher can't possibly make back the money it lavished on her. Of course, S&S can dole out whatever obscene sums it wants, but, the paper notes, it "should be known that the result of the overpayment . . . is that 75 men and women no longer have jobs."
It might be unfair to blame the job losses at S&S on Hillary, but isn't it an axiom of liberal thought that if somebody gets rich, somebody else must be made poor?
What The [Bleep] Is Going On In Iraq?
BAQOUBA, Iraq - An American soldier stands at the side of an Iraqi highway, puts his AK-47 on fully automatic and pulls the trigger.
Within seconds the assault rifle has blasted out 30 rounds. Puffs of dust dance in the air as the bullets smack into the scrubland dirt. Test fire complete.
U.S. troops in Iraq may not have found weapons of mass destruction, but they're certainly getting their hands on the country's stock of Kalashnikovs http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/ - and, they say, they need them.
"We just do not have enough rifles to equip all of our soldiers. So in certain circumstances we allow soldiers to have an AK-47. They have to demonstrate some proficiency with the weapon ... demonstrate an ability to use it," said Lt. Col. Mark Young, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.
Hey, Lefties! The Terrorists Think You're Stupid, Too!
Those who criticize the Bush administration's plan with respect to Iraq and the war on terrorism fail to understand that we're dealing with a new kind of warfare, heretofore unseen by the West. American military historian, William S. Lind, calls it "Fourth Generation Warfare". Lind developed the concept of generations of modern war in a series of lectures he gave to Marines in the mid-1980s. The First Generation is war of line-and-column tactics. Second Generation warfare, developed by the French Army during and after World War I, is based on the methodical application of firepower to cause attrition. It maintained the military culture and illusion of order. Third Generation warfare accepted the chaotic and disorderly nature of warfare. The German Army during and after World War I used this chaotic and messy "maneuver warfare" to its own advantage. Fourth Generation warfare has now emerged--with battles no longer taking place within the confines of nation-states, but rather anywhere and everywhere, with allegiances being formed on the basis of cultural and/or religious ties--not because of mutual loyalties to a particular state. These are exactly the phenomena we're witnessing right now with the odd couplings of secular Iraqis and Islamic extremists; and with the do-it-yourself suicide bombers who figure that they, too, can create their very own homemade cruise missile--by strapping a bomb to their chest and blowing themselves to Kingdom Come (or wherever Allah and his virgins happen to be hanging out nowadays).
David Pelganen, 78, lived in a nearby village, now abandoned and overgrown by the spreading forest, in the 1930s. He said cars carrying prisoners Stalin had deemed "enemies of the state" came here night after night, the headlights sweeping over the moss before they would come to a halt by the side of the road.
Then, Pelganen recalled, the lights would go out. There would be several moments of silence, interrupted by sudden gunfire.
Then, he said, the engines would start again, and their taillights would disappear around the corner. "This is evidence," he said. "They really killed people there."
During the Soviet era, people like Pelganen who knew of the killings kept quiet, afraid that the bloodthirsty system might go after them next.
Interesting comment by NPR's Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday today.
He pointed out that California Gov. Gray Davis is playing the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Card in order to keep the focus off the lousy job he has done as Governer. As long as the focus on Davis and his record, he loses.
Here it is, in black and white, in his own words:
Howard Dean is for across the boards Tax Hikes.
Strange but true, I just saw someone seriously post a argument on economics using Marxist theory as the basis for his argument.
Wake up and smell the coffee! Marxism doesn't work! It failed it's grand experiments! Communist China, Cuba and North Korea are the last holdouts.
China & Cuba have embraced capitalism to keep their countries afloat. North Korea hasn't, which is why they have resorted to cannibalism.
"In California, the fabulously rich support the poor with government jobs, paid for by the middle class ? which is now living in Arizona. " -- Ann Coulter
OK, we knew that politics in California were weird, but this really is out there:
You have the "Republican" Arnold Schwarzenegger coming out saying that taxes may have to be raised, and you have the far left extremist (and don't forget Clinton defender) democrat pornographer, Larry Flynt, calling for rigorous enforcement of immigration laws to order to cut back on the flow of illegals draining the state treasury!
Matt Maggio in the Alamance Independent
Politicians and former power-utility engineers are already
saying that the U.S. is an advanced nation with a Third World power
grid - but that's not quite accurate. Much more accurate would be
that core urban Blue Nation is like the seven-year-old car that
never got its oil, oil filter, or air filter changed. That's
because of the simple fact that Red Nation didn't have a power grid
until comparatively recently - while the grid and all other kinds
of infrastructure in core urban Blue Nation dates back almost a
century earlier.
Rather than dispute whether last week's giant power failure
was the Canadians' fault or Blue Nation's, it would be much more
accurate to say that infrastructure - of all kinds - in core urban
Blue Nation has been collapsing around the locals' ears as a result
of politicians there being much more interested in spending money
on social programs than on keeping up the infrastructure and have
been all too willing to pander to ecofreak special interests who
demanded no this and no that.
Thomas Sowell on Taxes in California
There is something bordering on the obscene about a billionaire blithely talking about raising taxes on people who are a long way from being billionaires, in order to bail out a state government whose reckless spending has turned a large surplus into a record deficit in just a couple of years.
King of Spades Chemical Ali captured!
A Hamas leader was killed by the Israeli Military. Go Israel!
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican candidate in California's recall race for governor, said he would hire an outside auditor to go through the state budget and identify potential areas to cut. He also pledged to avoid raising taxes.
Speaking at a news conference in Los Angeles, Schwarzenegger acknowledged that ``it's clear we can't ever say never'' to raising taxes. ``I'm principally against taxes. The people of California have been punished enough,'' he said. ``From the time they get up in the morning and flush the toilet, they are taxed.''
From Instapundit.com
BILL HOBBES NOTES that Nonviolence.org didn't miss a beat in condemning the bombing of Hiroshima on its anniversary a couple of weeks ago, but that it can't seem to condemn the killing of Israeli schoolchildren by Palestinian terrorists.
From the Washington Times:
A just-released study, commissioned by the Center for Individual Freedom Foundation, finds that more than 88 percent of the votes for judicial-nomination filibusters come from Democrats; Democrats pursue nearly five times as many filibusters, with three times the support, as Republicans; and more than 98 percent of the votes to filibuster Republican nominations come from Democrats.
From the Wall Street Journal Online
"[T]here is another Iraq that the media virtually ignore. It is guarded by the First Marine Division, and, unlike Baghdad, it has been a model of success. The streets are safe, petty and violent crime are low, water and electrical services are almost universally available (albeit rationed), and ordinary Iraqis are beginning to clean up and rebuild their neighborhoods and communities. Equally important, a deep level of mutual trust and respect has developed between the Marines and the populace here in central and southern Iraq."
Yahoo says that California is more productive than France.
Golly, what a surprise!
-- Les
Here is a good one from Instapundit
SPINSANITY HAS TWO POSTS, here and here, about Bush critics playing "fast and loose" with the facts. Molly Ivins appears. That's no surprise -- Ivins' claim to accuracy is about as well-founded as her claim to humor. but so does Clinton arms-control official Peter Zimmermann, who gets busted for making false claims about what Bush said regarding Saddam's nuclear capabilities. Conclusion: "critics of the administration's truthfulness need to be just as honest with the public as they ask the president to be."
The Weekly Standard on the BBC mess:
"What makes the BBC's behavior particularly heinous," noted Douglas Davis, the London correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, "is the relentless indulgence of its penchant for what might be politely termed 'moral equivalence' at a time when Britain is at war with a brutal enemy and its servicemen are dying on the battlefield." Mark Damazer, the deputy director of BBC News, did nothing to dispel that kind of criticism when he said (in a speech to Media Workers Against the War, no less) that it would be a "mistake" for BBC journalists to use the word "liberate" when referring to areas now under coalition control. Stephen Whittle, the BBC's controller of editorial policy, piled on, telling his journalists to refer to the armed forces as "British troops" and not "our" troops.
Of course, not everyone is certain that the BBC has ever had an "attachment to impartiality and the truth" (the Ministry of Truth in "1984" was partly inspired by George Orwell's wartime experiences working for the BBC). But even many who were previously inclined to show deference to the BBC are now losing that faith: A recent poll found that public confidence in the BBC has fallen by a third in the last nine months, and another poll found that 51 percent of Britons trust TV and radio news less now than they did a year ago. The BBC's current 10-year charter expires at the end of 2006, and a number of MPs are hinting that the terms of the charter will be significantly revised. A few radicals have even raised the idea of full privatization.
In April, columnist Barbara Amiel joked in the Telegraph that "About the only thing in Saddam's favor was that you could get the death penalty for listening to the BBC." Ironically, it just might be the BBC's desire to prevent the death of Saddam's regime that results in the mighty Corporation's own downfall.
I'm back! Two weeks of hiking in Philmont was great. Give me some time to catch up.
The heavy storms here did a number on my basement, so that will keep me busy for a while.
William Shatner Wants To Do What?
And while he wouldn't discuss specifics, Shatner said he has an idea for a new "Star Trek" series.
"In fact, I'm trying to interest the powers -- and that has many levels to it -- for me to conceive another 'Star Trek' manifestation," he said. "It would be a concept for a series."
The former Captain Kirk actually made his directorial film debut with 1989's "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier," which, until the most recent "Trek" flick, was considered the series' critical and financial low point.
The 72-year-old Shatner placed much of the blame for the film's failings with his then-inability to negotiate with those in charge.
"I think in terms of a political experience for me, I had to play the game with the studio, the producers, with the suits, and I didn't quite know how to do all that," he said. "I didn't know when to stand on principle and when to be politic. That's a very difficult decision in any life, let alone when making a movie.
"I learned a great deal. I probably compromised myself out of a terrific movie."
Frontpage Magazine on a certain Marxist Rag:
As the flagship publication of the political Left, The Nation consistently champions leftists’ lost causes, supporting totalitarian and Communist regimes while simultaneously rejecting any suggestion the United States is justified in military, or even philosophical, opposition to these rogue states. However, while The Nation’s leftist vision of foreign policy has been constant, it has also proven to be consistently wrong.
The cruel truth is the Left despises the foundations upon which this nation was built: liberty, individual responsibility and capitalism. Raging blindly against everything American, they cannot help making common cause with America's enemies. Only in totalitarian regimes is the Left's hatred of the United States so perfectly reflected. Such a conclusion may seem simplistic, but so are creatures driven by rancid instinct.
Capitalism Magazine on the Eastern States Blackout:
Listen up! There are over 280 million of us and all of us, except for those who live in cardboard boxes under a bridge, want to have our air conditioning work in the summer and our furnace work in the winter. We expect the food in our refrigerator to stay frozen. We expect to turn on our computers, our lights, and, God help us, our television sets.
The latest blackout was a warning that, so long as this nation continues to go along with idiotic and malevolent environmentalists and their lies about darned near everything, we are going to have more and worse blackouts.
Who needs terrorists? Our national security is entirely dependent on safe, reliable and abundant energy. Maybe 8-14-03 needs to be added to 9-11-01 as a reminder of that? Environmentalists have been attacking the economic and energy base of this nation for decades. Call it the Californication of America.
Ann Coulter on the California Mess:
Democrats governed their petri dish as they always govern. They buy the votes of government workers with taxpayer-funded jobs, salaries and benefits -- and then turn around and accuse the productive class of "greed" for wanting their taxes cut. This has worked so well nationally that more people in America now work for the government than work in any sort of manufacturing job.
Strictly adhering to formula in California, as the private sector was bleeding jobs and money, Gov. Davis signed off on comically generous pensions for government workers. Government employees in the Golden State earn more than the private sector workers who pay their salaries -- and that's excluding the job security, health benefits and 90 percent pension plans that come with "Irish welfare," as government jobs used to be called.
Economists refer to this backward ratio between public and private sector salaries as "France." (Inasmuch as they are paid more and work less than private sector employees, perhaps we could ease up on treating public schoolteachers like Mother Teresa washing the feet of the poor in Calcutta.) The public sector unions repaid Davis with massive contributions to his re-election campaign.
Davis bought himself re-election and is now the most hated officeholder in America. The people of California are willing to plunge their state into humiliation and chaos just to get rid of him. The fact that Arianna Huffington hasn't been laughed off a stage yet is a pretty good gauge of the public's frustration with Davis.
Gil Leroy wants to kick California out of The Union:
Putting California in the dumpster could help the U.S. forge new alliances around the world which, of course, has been awfully peeved at us lately for not being willing to forge new alliances.
Now, it's true that this wouldn't come without cost. Patrolling a border running from Yuma, Arizona to Brookings, Oregon would be tough. And the border crossing checkpoints at South Lake Tahoe and elsewhere would likely increase the already heinous traffic.
But at least the U.S. would be rid of its biggest political embarrassment since Florida. It's worth writing your congressman about.
And maybe, if we're lucky, we could send Oregon with 'em.
Jim Dunnigan on Iraq's problem with Iraqis:
Unfortunately, more constructive attitudes in Arab nations are a coming trend, not an established attitude. So peacekeepers, or liberators, will have to expect ingratitude, inaction, violent opportunism, and rampant paranoia. Hiring lots of Arab-Americans has helped to inform Iraqis that there are better ways to cope. But there are so many Saddam wannabes still in Iraq, that it's hard for the voice of reason to be heard among all the shouting about hatred, revenge, theocracy, and the "good old days" of corruption and torture.
The solution to Iraq's woes is "civil society." This means that Iraqis have to accept the rule of law, and individual responsibility. There has been little of either for the past thirty years. You can't just ship in civil society. It comes from within, and until enough Iraqis believe in civil society, and practice it, they will continue to be the authors of their own misfortune, and the victims as well.
Thomas Sowell on the California state of mind:
Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a big splash in the media by entering the California governor's race. But the real news out of California came a few days before Arnold's political bombshell.
The latest census data show -- for the first time -- that more Californians have been moving to other states than people in other states have been moving to California. Between 1995 and 2000, California had a net loss of more than 600,000 people to other states. People are voting with their feet.
After years -- indeed, generations -- of being a magnet for people and businesses, California is now exporting both, including particularly young people. Why?
One reason is that California's politicians are following a strategy which has worked well politically in New York City -- milking the productive people in order to support the unproductive, whose votes count just as much and are easier to get.
They say that California is a state of mind -- and you can see what state that mind is in -- at least among the political classes. You can also see why many of the people whose work has contributed to building California into a great state are getting fed up and leaving.
Arnold Schwarzenegger already shows that he knows California will have to stop driving business away. But it will take a lot to terminate California's left-coast mindset.
What The Established Media Isn't Telling Us:
Marine Cpl. Josh Ingram has returned home from spending seven months in Kuwait and Iraq. He's on emergency family medical leave to help his dad who has cancer. He might not be going back to Iraq because his unit may be returning to Twentynine Palms next month.
He left Baghdad on a helicopter to Kuwait; three days later he was home.
Initially he couldn't get a flight to the Arcata/Eureka airport but when he told the ticket agent in San Francisco his story, he was placed on the next flight.
Ingram said that the whole story about American troops in Iraq isn't being told.
"I've heard that people are saying that the Iraqi people don't want us here," Ingram said. "Everyone's just seeing the fighting and the bad stuff on the news. But they don't know what's actually going on there."
He was welcomed nearly everywhere he went.
I know this is a bit old, but Mark Steyn is having a lot of fun at the expense of the BBC. (Second Try)
And then there's The Matrix as designed by Microsoft.
It needs Quicktime to run.
-- Les
So whether it's the result of their paradoxical close-mindedness (in the case of not recognizing biased liberal reporting), or their scheming political wiles (as in the case of distancing themselves from the liberal label during elections), liberals are wont to deny liberalism. I don't blame them.
-- David Limbaugh on Townhall.com
Frontpage Magazine is running a really good issue today.
Here is Tammy Bruce's comments on the political elite's reaction to California's recall election:
I have been watching with some astonishment how supposedly populist-minded leftists, ranging from Bill Maher to Jesse Ventura, have been shocked, just shocked, that the people of California have the gall to indulge in the purest form of direct democracy. How dare we remember that we’re in charge here, and not the Prison Guard Union or the AFL-CIO.
Our system allows for bloodless coups, and this recall is one of them. There is a singular, Technicolor announcement of recalls: it’s that we, the collective Common Man, are in charge. The bosses and footsoldiers of both the Republican and Democratic parties have forgotten that little fact.
The California recall was reviled by both machines for exactly the same reason—it wasn’t under their control, it wasn’t their idea, and it might, just might – with that dastardly internet, talk radio and Fox News – inspire other Americans to chase a few Special Interest Group Patsies out of town.
Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota and now fledgling talk show host, has generally made a living as the Ultimate Everyman. What a charade that is. A member of the Reform party, he talks wildly about how useless both political parties are; how politicians don’t represent the people. But those aren’t the only people he derides. I mention this to you because just a few weeks ago I was a ‘guest’ during one of the now many test shows MSNBC is doing in an effort to see if they can somehow make him into a decent talk show host. From what I saw, they’re not having an easy time of it.
At the end of the taping, which was for NBC executives, Ventura asked me what I thought about the recall. I told him it was fantastic. He then began to rail about Californians didn’t know what they were doing. When I explained that the people could be trusted to do the right thing and were smart he spewed, among other contemptuous statements, “Oh no they’re not!”
Ah, another vote of confidence from a representative of The People
Absolute Coolness from Newsmax.com
The new Web site concocted by Friends of Hillary begs for money and urges supporters to join "Hill's Angels."
"Go to www.hillsangels, however, and you end up at a site devoted to fetishistic worship of the scantily clad babes featured on Brit comedian Benny Hill's 'jiggle-sex' TV show, reports the Washington newspaper The Hill (no relation to Hillary or Benny)."
Lowell Ponte is having fun at the expense of a well known Dumocrat:
THE GRIEVANCE INDUSTRY PROVIDES WEALTH AND POWER for thousands of people. Always seeking new causes for complaint, recently one of this industry’s greatest impresarios of indignation, raconteurs of resentment, entrepreneurs of enmity and divas of demand found an amazing new reason to scream “racism!”
African-Americans like herself ought to feel offended, Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D.-Texas) told The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C., because hurricanes are given “lily white” names.
(Among the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official names for tropical storms that hit Texas earlier this year were “Claudette” and “Juan.” Until 1953, when the U.S. Government adopted the use of alphabetical female names for tropical storms, it had followed the centuries-old tradition of naming these storms for the Catholic saints on whose day they were designated. In 1978 NOAA began using both male and female names to identify storms, no longer calling every hurricane a “her.”)
“All racial groups should be represented,” said Rep. Lee, adding that she hoped that the weather establishment in future “would try to be inclusive of African American names” such as “Keisha, Jamal and Deshawn.”
Consider those dedicated medical researchers whose highest reward is to have a dread disease they have studied named for them, thereby turning their name into a kind of curse. “Bad news, Mrs. Smith, your mother has Alzheimer’s Disease!” (It was named after German neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer, who discovered the disorder in 1906.)
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES - Arnold Schwarzenegger ended the suspense Wednesday and jumped into the race for California governor, instantly becoming the best-known of the declared candidates seeking to replace Democrat Gray Davis in a recall.
The surprise announcement by the "Terminator" actor, a moderate Republican, capped a day of fast-paced developments in one of the most unpredictable political races in recent history.
Earlier, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein had ruled out a run, labeling the election "more and more like a carnival every day." And political commentator Arianna Huffington declared she would run as an independent.
Schwarzenegger, 56, announced his decision during a taping of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," calling it the toughest he's made since deciding to get a bikini wax in 1978.
"The politicians are fiddling, fumbling and failing," he said. "The man that is failing the people more than anyone is Gray Davis. He is failing them terribly, and this is why he needs to be recalled and this is why I am going to run for governor."
Another point of data in favor of the Separation of School and State:
St. Louis School Board member Rochell Moore fired off a cryptic letter Tuesday to Mayor Francis Slay, saying he is "cursed with a curse" of biblical proportions for interfering with the city school district.
Moore - who distributed her letter to area news media - also accuses the mayor of participating in a conspiracy that she said landed her in a psychiatric unit last year.
The letter consists almost entirely of a passage in Deuteronomy in which Moses spells out the calamities that would attend the Israelites if they strayed from God
One of Frank's tips for dealing airline terrorists:
* The airline pillows are too small to smother a terrorist. If you need to smother a terrorist, politely ask your flight attendant for a blanket.
What If California Held a Bond Sale And Nobody Came?
It's been done before. Several states defaulted on their bonds in 1842, during one of the frequent financial crises that rocked the country during the nineteenth century.
Among the many differences between 1842 and now, however, is the fact that the typical government bond underwriters are now publicly-held entities. These organizations have a fiduciary responsibility to their own stockholders to avoid making significant investments in junk, even for potential resale.
At what point will these publicly-traded investment firms decide that they simply won't buy California bonds, no matter how attractive the promised yield? Wouldn't that decision be reached before California actually defaults?
After all, a bond sale is just a promise to pay. With the California government's current sorry record of evading responsibility, there is an increasing risk that someday the promise will be broken.
An update on the X-Prize:
LISSIE, Texas - On a rice farm west of Houston, in a pasture littered with cow droppings, Jim Akkerman is immersed in the work of the future.
Flanked by industrial gas tanks and wearing a straw hat, he rummages through his 1978 Ford Club Wagon van for pliers as a crop-dusting plane drones overhead. The retired NASA engineer pays it no mind. He's too busy connecting copper tubing to the 27-foot propulsion system of his homemade spaceship.
That's right, spaceship.
...
Two weeks after he prepped his Mayflower propulsion system for testing on that scorching day in May, Akkerman met with disaster.
As a yellow-and-orange plume of exhaust hissed from its tail, the heat caused a nearby copper tube to rupture and hose down the pasture - cow droppings and all - with liquid oxygen.
The result was a small fire that deformed the engine nozzle and damaged the suspension system. He hauled the propulsion unit back to a Houston welding shop for disassembly and repairs.
In an e-mail to nearly 100 project supporters, Akkerman explained that the test was somewhat successful. He was able to gather data on how to adjust the fuel-to-oxygen ratio for efficient thrust.
"We have one [more] bit of valuable data. Cow pies in the area burned long after everything else was extinguished," Akkerman wrote. "Continuing to look forward and up."
With that, he returned to the drawing board.
Weird Source of Weird Quote:
"Maybe it’s not so hard to figure out, however. See, in Bubba, Campbell is playing Elvis. Elvis at 68-years-old, that is, and he’s in an East Texas nursing home, suffering from a cancer-ridden [attribute] and waiting to die. Then the rest home is attacked by an ancient mummy who is sucking the souls from the residents from any available orifice. There’s only one thing for the King to do: team up with an elderly black man who thinks he’s JFK and take on this Egyptian ghoul. "
Quote for Today
“You know the two places in the world where a citizen has to have a gun owner’s ID card?” he said. “Illinois and Cuba. That’s embarrassing.”
-- Ted Nugent
From today's Commiewatch:
The first International Tribunal on U.S. War Crimes in Korea was held in July, 2001 in New York City by the Korean Truth Commission, a sub-group of the International Action Center, a Workers World Party-controlled front. The second International Tribunal on U.S. War Crimes in Korea was held just last week, in Pyongyang, North Korea, by Korean Committee in Solidarity with the World's People. I mentioned last week that representatives of the Workers World Party were in North Korea, but I didn't know exactly what took place there. The latest issue of the Workers World clues me in a bit more.
It doesn't necessarily imply cooperation with a foreign government when a communist group like the Workers World Party visits a place like North Korea. It's possible that they're just annoying groupies - the 'I love North Korea' fans that periodically show up, wave some flags, pay their regards to the body of Kim Il Sung, and be on their way, all while the North Korean government collectively rolls its eyes and mutters 'my God, just who are these people?' But when one event is organized in New York City by the Workers World Party, and then another, identical event is organized in the capital of North Korea by the North Korean government, while the representatives of the Workers World Party are present - correct me if my reasoning is false, but that, to me, implies some sort of mutual coordination and cooperation. Now, North Korea is a rogue state hostile to the United States; shouldn't we - or at least the American government - know just how closely the North Koreans and the Workers World Party are cooperating? You know, God forbid, but it's not inconceivable that North Korea and the United States will someday be at war. Should this occur, will the Workers World Party slip into full-blown treason? By staging propaganda events in cooperation with the North Koreans, are they committing treason already?
John Lehmann in the New York Post
August 2, 2003 -- Bill Clinton's socialite pal Denise Rich disguised a $2,000 donation to Hillary Rodham Clinton by coercing her record promoter to make the contribution and later reimbursing him, a new $30 million legal suit charges.
The promoter, Jimmy Hester, who filed the federal lawsuit in Manhattan yesterday, is now at the center of the FBI's long-running criminal probe into the circumstances surrounding Clinton's last-minute presidential pardoning of Rich's ex-husband, Marc Rich, The Post has learned.
Hester's criminal lawyer, Brad Simon, confirmed yesterday that FBI agents interviewed Hester two weeks ago in New York.
Simon, who was not aware that Hester's allegation of Rich's "disguised" $2,000 donation had been included in the civil suit, declined to comment further, but sources said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jim Comey reactivated the Rich probe in recent months.
It is illegal for a person to make donations in another person's name to get around the $2,000 donation limit, Washington election-law expert Ken Gross said yesterday.
Rich, a wealthy songwriter, sparked a national scandal by helping her husband win the Clinton pardon in the last days of his presidency.
Marc Rich fled to Switzerland after being indicted on charges he evaded $48 million in taxes.
Lowell Ponte in Frontpage Magazine:
Nobody wants to burn the Bill of Rights – except the terrorists themselves. But no sane person wants to give eco-maniacs an unfettered path to their new weapon of choice, pyromania. As Smokey Bear might say, only we can prevent wildfires set by eco-terrorists – and for the sake of both the natural habitat and human environment we need to take whatever steps are needed to do so.
One good step would be to make these terrorists pay a political price. When they burn down a permitted development of 1,500 condominiums under construction, local and county authorities should give developers permission to build 1,750 units on the same site. (No, this will not encourage builders to torch their own sites to gain unit-density upgrades.) This will provide some recompense to builders and a deterrent to terrorist acts of destruction.
Another useful step would be to remind the public that this latest act of terrorism in San Diego destroyed homes. Once again, eco-extremists have shown that they despise humankind and practice their own form of racism by discriminating against one natural species, homo erectus, the erectors of civilization. No compromise or quarter should be offered to fanatics whose worldview equates humans and spotted owls
A bloody odd quote from the Film Threat web site:
"Ask not what your rest home can do for you, but what you can do for your rest home."
- Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
What's Wrong With The BBC?
All of this has many in Britain extremely annoyed, including some who agree with the BBC's slant. We must imagine them asking themselves - at last - why they should have to pay $180 a year to listen to biased commentary when competing networks, perhaps biased in a different way, offer their blather for nothing.
There is a fundamental problem with the BBC and all public broadcasting enterprises. They are magnets for anti- traditionalist, leftist staffers who fondle their ideals over the air, knowing they are in a business far removed from the disgusting commercialism of their competitors. Their revenue is carved directly out of the public's hide.
Southern homeowner gets tired of drugster firefights in his front yard. From the Charleston Post and Courier:
Roused from his sleep by the sound of gunfire about 4:30 a.m. Friday, the 67-year-old Gates took up his 12-gauge Browning automatic shotgun, stepped out onto his front porch and fired three blasts at men he said were drug dealers having a shootout in his front yard.
When the shooting stopped, three men lay wounded. Gates is said to have hit two of them, and the third is thought to have been hit during the initial shootout.
Gates, a semi-retired brick mason who drives a battered blue Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck with an airbrushed tag on the front bumper that says "Godfather," said Friday afternoon that he was only protecting his wife and house from what he describes as out-of-control neighborhood thugs in their teens and 20s who drink beer and sell and take drugs in his yard. He said gunshots fired near his house during drug-related disputes are a common occurrence.
"I had had enough," he said. "If I have to go to jail, so be it."
While police did not publicly approve of what Gates did, they filed no charges against him Friday.
"We have no plans to arrest him," Charleston Police Chief Reuben Greenberg said. "We can't see from where we sit where a crime's been committed. People have the right to provide for their safety, and we believe that is what he was doing."
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has been kind enough to answer the irrational rantings of this Socialist Twit.
In my younger days I used to enjoy the act of intellectually pummeling those persons that Ayn Rand (on one of her nicer days) used to call Looters. My problem is that the act of rubbing their noses in the conceptual fecal matter that they routinely produce has become way too easy (which sort of implies that the Looters are way too stupid) and not as emotionally satisfying for me as it was about ten years ago when I started posting on Usenet newsgroups.
Misha at the Rottweiler takes an essentially defensive position and simply points out the fact that the self-proclaimed "conceptual guerrilla" is rather throughly disconnected from reality. Which is fine as far as it goes.
If one wanted to go on the offensive (Or is it the Counter-Offensive?) one may simply point out the fact that the socialist economic structure is based on SLAVE LABOR.
"From each according to his ability -- to each according to his need." Is the literal description of a slave labor economic system.
It is invariably the full socialist states such as the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, and the various People's Republics of Whatever that build and depend on full-service slave labor camps to create the goods that they need to survive.
It is the socialist parties in the otherwise Capitalist nations of the West that act as if wealth, the product of everyone's thought and labor, belong not to the individual who created it, but to some manefestation of the collective (Der Volk, the World Proletariat, etc.) as a whole, and thus act as if a robbery has occured when the true creators of wealth are allowed to keep some of it.
(Gosh, wow, I do tend to get a bit long winded sometimes.)
The socialist is for the most part someone who declines to live the essentially rational and productive life that is proper to Man, and instead goes to great lengths (including the total disconnect from reality) to cook up excuses to grab the wealth created by others. As if the goods and services created by others were something naturally found in nature.
Instead of living as rational men, socialists choose instead to exist as less than rational animals.
Perhaps we should start treating them as such.
-- Leslie Bates
A Possible New Use For A Can Of SPAM:
As these unpleasant people in Iraq keep on potting American soldiers at the rate of about one a day, we have a suggestion for the local command. Let anyone caught in the possession of a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) be pigged on the spot. Not shot, just pigged. That is not even against any stipulation of the Geneva Conference, but I bet it would work. (Being "pigged" is being doused in pig viscera.)
-- Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC, Retired. August 2003.
Capitalism Magazine on the California budget crisis:
On the one hand, there is the premise of the welfare state, which demands that the government act as a socialist re-distributor of wealth, taxing the "haves" in order to dole out freebies to the "have-nots." On this premise if someone has a need he cannot meet, the state must provide for it.
On the other hand, there is the original American premise of property rights, which assumes that no one--"not god nor society"--may deprive a man of the fruits of his labor. This premise is at least partly recognized in our hostility to new taxes.
The contradiction between these two premises creates a public that demands ever more social spending, but rejects any attempt to raise their taxes.
By refusing to address this contradiction, and instead putting bandages over its effects, California's Assembly has merely prolonged the crisis and worsened the disaster that will occur when we can no longer put off the decision between respecting the individual's right to keep the results of his labor, and considering it the property of society, to be redistributed at the whim of lawmakers.
Here is a nice one from Mr. Harris
Karl Rove isn't just smart, he's lucky:
His [Rove's] latest good fortune is the battle between Howard Dean and John Kerry over how much to raise taxes. The scrap is a microcosm of the current Democratic problem....
Mr. Rove must be wondering what he did to deserve this. In pursuit of Mr. Dean, every Democratic Presidential candidate is now proposing some kind of tax increase, from the humongous (in Mr. Dean's case, $2 trillion over 10 years*) to merely the huge....
Interview with actor James Woods
Q: Geez, you're cynical. You don't trust the press at all.
A: It's one of these things where there's mass insanity. Like you have to assume that everybody in Germany wasn't a complete and utter sadist, but somehow there became a mass psychosis. There's almost a mass psychosis on both sides of the press these days. It's so rapaciously polarized that it's just unbearable.
I can also see people salivating. I had dinner once with that communist guy Robert Scheer, and he was actually salivating. Christ, this guy. If I were casting a potential presidential assassin, I would just have taken a photograph of him salivating with hatred for George Bush and said to the casting director, "Get me an actor who can play this horrible, hateful, vicious emotion" -- and he's a journalist! A journalist who wishes he had a gun with a telescopic sight, that's what he is.
Thomas Sowell on peer pressure
We usually think of peer pressure as something that kids succumb to. But not only is such pressure effective with people who have long since passed childhood, not all the peer pressure on children is spontaneous.
Schools across the country promote using peers as guides. There are even "trust-building" exercises designed to get students to rely on their classmates. At the same time, these same schools try to put distance between students and their parents.
"Many parents wonder why they lose their children to a whole new value system," a parent once said plaintively. It is not accidental. There are not only individual pied pipers in the schools but whole nationwide educational efforts to detach children from their parents, as a way of promoting "social change."
It is not just parents, but the whole moral structure of society that must be undermined through such misnamed programs as "values clarification" and its sequels -- if the fashionable brand of "change" is to be imposed.
That the pathetically under-educated people who staff our public schools should take upon themselves the task of shaping a whole society is staggering. What is even more staggering is that the rest of us let them get away with it -- for the most part, because so few even know that it is happening.
There is no way to quantify just how much we are all paying so that a relative handful of people can feel important as part of some elite peer group. But we are paying, not only economically, but in everything from social disintegration to violent crime. Whole societies have come apart when the things that hold them together have been dissolved.
